Player characters in video games have always been adapted to change movement speeds depending upon game conditions or user input. Many first-person shooter games, for example, allow the player to push a button or move a cross-switch to make the player character run in the first person viewpoint. Likewise, many games played in a third-person view allow the player to increase the speed of the player character in order to make the player character run.
However, these games do not allow the virtual camera to automatically shift to a position looking downward to give the player a more “realistic” sense of the player character running in the third-person view. It is therefore desirable to provide a gaming environment where the virtual camera will automatically move upward while viewing downward when the player character runs so that the player character's footing is made more easily viewable.